Matt's Reason
by Winaru
Summary: Matt travels to a world where a person's deepest wishes are granted. Here he visits Yuko, a girl he fell in love with in 1999, a girl with a mysterious past, who died protecting her best friend. As Christmas draws nearer so does the time to say goodbye to first love. Slowly Matt begins to reveal why he's writing about Yuko and what he learns about sacrifice and the sibling bond...
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Digimon, but this story is my own.

**Other stuff:** I mostly referred to the English dub version so the personalities of the characters align more closely with the English dub version than the Japanese version.

But I also looked to the original version for inspiration when I needed it, so perhaps the relationships between the characters or something else is more similar to the original.

Also, though this story is mainly Matt x OC, I made it so it still supports the canon pairings, especially Matt x Sora.

I hope you will enjoy this story. Many thanks for coming here to read~

(Fingers crossed, I hope you'll like it!)

~W

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**Matt's Reason**

**December 2002**

**Day One**

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**1.**

I woke up that morning to find that I had left the real world.

Where was I and how did I know this?

I'll answer the second question first.

The reason I knew, before I had even opened my eyes that not only was I not in Odaiba but in a different world was because of a strange noise I heard.

It was a strange but not unfamiliar sound. If my memory serves me, I had first heard it three years ago, back when Tai, Sora, Mimi, Izzy, Joe, and my little brother T.K. were still getting to know the Digital World.

We were locked in a sea of pink then, running for our lives with at least a thousand Yokomon, trying to put as much distance between us and a raging Digimon covered in cackling crimson flames.

Our friend Sora fell behind helping the Yokomon escape. I think she felt a special bond with them because her Digimon partner Biyomon had digivolved from a Yokomon, and this walking, talking pink bulb with a blooming flower on its head was the first Digimon she had encountered on waking up in this new world.

Up until then, we had been in the Digital World for at most one week. The oldest of us only 5th graders then, ignorant and totally inexperienced, but even we were not naïve enough to believe that we had landed in a video game, that everything could be reset by simply hitting a button. On our very first day we had seen these strange creatures risking their lives to save us. They had digivolved—altered form, become stronger—because they wanted to protect us. Though there were so many things that we couldn't quite understand—where we were, how to go home—after seeing them digivolve for the first time, our hearts seemed to have grasped onto something way more important than every technical truth about the Digital World combined. These creatures who called themselves Digimon, Digital Monsters, were our best friends. They would do anything to protect us. Armed with this snippet of knowledge there was no limit to what we were able to overcome.

While the rest of us were running away she alone stayed behind to make sure that Biyomon's friends were also safe. She almost didn't see Meramon sneaking up from behind her but luckily Biyomon's senses were sharp like an eagle's and blasted away that black gear lodged in the poor Digimon's back in the nick of time.

It was the first time Biyomon digivolved into her Champion form.

It was the first time we saw Birdramon soar and heard her ear-splitting cry.

Hearing that distinctive scream again I knew I was no longer in my world. I was in that world when I fell asleep but I must have tripped and stepped through some weird portal while I was dreaming because I was back in the Digital World when I opened my eyes. I felt something soft and prickly nipping at the nape of my neck and noticed that I was lying on a patch of grass at the top of a small hill instead of in my bed at home. I thought it was still early in the morning because the grass was still wet with dew but the sun was shining directly over my head. Against the grass my wrists were cool yet my face was warm. I could already feel beads of sweat gathering on my forehead. I had opened my eyes with some difficulty but the world around me still refused to come into focus. Squinting I managed to catch a blurry glimpse of a fiery orange storm soaring across the pale sky.

I knew at once that it was Birdramon.

In that instant Sora's face flashed across my mind.

If Birdramon's here she must be close by too, I thought. Could she be in some sort of danger?

If Tai had been there he would have run straight to her without a second's delay. But somehow I still had doubts about whether this was the _real _Digital World.

How did I get here? I wondered. What were the chances that I had slipped through time and space as I was sleeping, coincidentally fell through the correct portal and landed back inside this world?

And where was Gabumon? If I really was where I thought I was, Gabumon should already be beside me. Wherever I was he was never too far off. In this world danger lurked behind every corner and Gabumon always made sure he was around to protect me.

This was another reason I wasn't too concerned about Sora. What tough, evil Digimon hadn't we faced and defeated back in the day? As long as Birdramon was with her I wasn't so worried.

I had no doubt though that Tai would have scolded me for not rushing off to help our friend. In case the subject was ever to surface the next time we talked, I couldn't let him know how I just lay back and waited as his girlfriend and her Digimon battled tooth and nail against whatever huge and ugly monster they were currently facing. With still no idea how to go about the fact that Gabumon was nowhere to be seen and that I had started leaving my own digivice in my sock drawer instead of keeping it close at hand, I sat up and rubbed my eyes. Slowly, after almost a minute, I was able to see my surroundings clearly. I looked up to the sky. Again I heard Birdramon's screech but didn't catch the scorching red nebula shooting across it a second time.

At the top of the green hill I could see Primary Village in its entirety. Three years had passed since the eight of us came home, but I recognized it for its bright, playful colours and the buildings that seemed to be made of the toy blocks that T.K. used to play with when he was still a kid.

To the left was a huge sandpit and to the right a Tsunomon village extended towards the horizon. A dense forest of trees was stationed behind me, and I couldn't shake off the impression that I had seen it somewhere before.

Birdramon had flown into the sea of dark swaying treetops and disappeared. Thinking that Sora must be inside the forest or in a similar clearing on the other side, I stepped inside after her, calling out her name repeatedly at the top of my lungs.

"SORA! Are you there?! SORA!"

Strangely though, the more times I called out for her and the further into the forest I walked, the warmer my heart grew. I recalled happy memories and at the same time I felt the old ache thumping against my chest once more.

I kept shouting but I guessed Sora couldn't hear me because not once did she answer my calls. Hastening my pace, a strange feeling that I would never reach the end of this forest suddenly came over me. But I didn't slow down as I could already see the speck of light that marked the edge of the clearing.

Somewhere along the way, in the fuzzy shade of the towering trees, I began to feel an awful heaviness around my neck. About the same time the place where Gabumon bit me years ago started to hurt. To be honest I had fully forgotten about that incident since the wound disappeared almost immediately after Gabumon and I escaped Darkness and it had left no physical scar. This was the first time I had felt any pain from it in three years. The first time I was able to sense the intensity of Gabumon's helplessness and despair at the time.

Soon I also noticed that my left wrist was still bandaged from the time I was stung by a Flymon in an attack.

I remember thinking that it was very odd. The Flymon attack and my falling into Darkness happened on completely separate occasions—weeks or even months apart. There was no way the sting injury hadn't healed already by the time we faced the Dark Masters, I thought, could it be that I had not only tripped through a portal bringing me back to the Digital World but was now victim of a technical error, a vengeful virus, that was scrambling around the sequence and timing of events that had occurred here before?

I was confused but I didn't slow down and as I ran I started asking all sorts of funny questions.

Was this Birdramon really Sora's Birdramon?

What if this _other _Birdramon was only luring me to a trap set up by the enemy?

What if the person on the other side of the forest was _not_ Sora?

What if this was all a dream?

Would I really find her?

I ran for about another two or three hundred metres with these wild questions echoing inside my brain. No matter how I tried I couldn't get rid of these voices. They were like warnings, telling me that I had to prepare myself for the worst. I didn't have my digivice on me and I didn't have Gabumon. The Digital World seemed a truly unpredictable and malicious place without Gabumon beside me.

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All reviews are welcome! Thanks :3


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** I guess I'm not creative enough to design my own Digimon so I thought it'd be exciting to imagine some of my favourite Pokemon as the Digimon partners of my original characters! Just for fun =] Just wanted to mention that the name 'Rokon' (Vulpix's Japanese name) belongs to Pokemon and its creators.

**2.**

I saw it as the world around me suddenly descended into darkness.

I saw it—a colossal beast—rising to the centre of the sky. It spread out its gigantic silver wings and blocked out the light of the sun.

Instinctively my eyes found his. Even at this strange angle I could see them glaring angrily down at me. As always, those eyes contained inside of them two whole worlds filled with only the bluest oceans and the clearest skies.

Even now I can't recall seeing anything just as beautiful.

Staring at the creature, I lingered. I had stopped running. My back faced the speck of light that was already so large I only needed to take one more step to reach the clearing and to feel sunlight on my neck. But I just stood there with my feet glued to the forest floor, gaping up at the silhouette of the winged beast high up in the sky.

What I saw wasn't possible.

The eight of us had used all our crests to break the seals imposed on the four Digimon Sovereigns. Even Gabumon could not digivolve into WereGarurumon anymore so it couldn't be possible that this was the ultimate form of _her _Digimon. Could it?

But then I thought of all the weird stuff that was already happening around me.

Why not this as well?

As if to confirm what I was thinking, another familiar sound brought me back to life.

The moment I heard that strange laugh, I felt that I had been transported back in time and it was that day three years ago all over again. Even now I cannot begin to describe everything I thought and everything I felt when I heard that one voice I was on the verge of forgetting. Even now I cannot explain how I was so happy yet so overwhelmed by sadness at the exact same time. The pain in my wrist and leg began to throb maniacally. Only later did I understand why those wounds reappeared and why I had felt no pain in my heart.

"Ah! So you've found this place too? What a coincidence, I was just thinking about you!"

I couldn't do anything to stop it from happening. Right then and there, in Sildramon's massive shadow I started crying. Before I could even turn around to look at her, to see for myself that it was really her, that she was really there, tears welled up and dropped to the ground like violent rain.

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"Matt?"

Her voice was exactly how I remembered it. So much so that before I had time to turn around, her whole image had wafted inside my mind, appearing right before my eyes exactly as I remembered her. The way she said my name hadn't changed one bit. It was the same way I used to call out to T.K. and the same way I sometimes still hear Tai calling to his sister Kari. When we were in the Digital World, the first time around, it was the only way we knew how to talk to them. Yet the further we went on our journey to save the world, the more Dark Masters and 'powers of darkness' we faced, the way we called out to them slowly changed as well. It's not that we grew less concerned. We became more confident in their abilities, more certain that they could take care of themselves and that we didn't have to worry about them as much as we used to. Over these three years Tai had watched Kari grow stronger day by day and even though I wasn't around to spot all the little changes, every time I met T.K. I could sense that there was something different about him. It wasn't just that he was growing taller and more confident. Every time I saw him I'd notice that he was becoming more and more certain about who he is, what kind of person he is, where his true strengths lie. On these occasions I try to remember who I was back then and I wondered what I was missing, what it was that made me so unsure of myself when I was his age.

Not that I'm entirely sure of myself now, though I can't deny that many things have definitely changed.

But this was the first time she and I had met in three years. I guess in her eyes I was still that same little kid.

"Are you hurt?"

The fact that I was crying couldn't have helped persuade her otherwise.

I couldn't trust myself to give a straightforward answer so I only shook my head in reply. With the flat of my palm I tried to erase every sign of weakness from my eyes. When was the last time I cried? Though I couldn't recall any particular instance, I remembered thinking that it was a very long time ago, most likely around the time I was in elementary school and T.K. was just a baby.

Still the sensation felt so familiar, as if it was something I did out of habit every day. Again I felt the old wounds on my leg and wrist throbbing painfully. I was only inches away from reaching the clearing yet I couldn't let her to see me in this pitiful state. Standing where I was I heard her calling out to me once more.

"Matt…you ok?"

I nodded, feeling my throat constrict. "Is it…Are you really…" I could only mutter so much without choking back more tears.

"Hey, can't you tell? And here I thought we knew each other so well," she said. I knew she was joking, but right then I wanted so badly to tell her that it wasn't true. I knew it was her from the moment I heard her say my name. I wanted to tell her so many things, yet it was hopeless, I could only stand there with my eyes shut tight, wishing with all my might for the angry stream to stop running.

I waited for the moment to arrive when I could convince myself that this wasn't merely a dream. That she really was here and all those horrible things that had happened before had never really happened, that I had dreamed up all of it, everything that I had experienced in the last three years.

Was it possible that only now was I fully awake, only now had I truly returned to reality?

I tried to say something, but no words came out.

A small wind brushed past my ears and I thought I caught her saying sarcastically: "Take your time Matt. Of course I can just wait around here forever."

Why couldn't I just walk out of the forest and meet her face to face? What was I still doing here, alone and ashamed, cowering in the shadows exactly as the old me would have done?

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"It was nice of you to keep Rokonmon with you that time," I heard her say just as that old fear tickled my neck and I started to feel as though after all this time I had learned absolutely nothing, as though after all we had been through together, I was the only one who hadn't improved, I was the only one who hadn't become stronger. Everyone had moved on and left me behind. I was alone again and this time even Gabumon didn't want to be with me.

"I didn't know she wanted to stay," I croaked.

"Really? I wasn't surprised at all," she said. "We met you guys first. You were the only ones who knew our story," she shrugged, "It didn't seem like the was the obvious choice to you?"

Her yukata scrunched as she raised her arm to scratch her ear.

"A couple of days before it happened I asked her which one of you she would stay with if I had to leave her behind. I was so afraid that she would end up alone."

The grass rustled as she shuffled over them in her wooden sandals.

"Actually, I'm still afraid, even now."

A cold breeze blew past. The shadows darkened all of a sudden; the bits of light showering from the gaps in the leaves grew dim.

"In that world there are so many who are just like Gatomon. They spend years and years waiting for human partners who, for one reason or another, will never arrive in the Digital World. Eventually, like Gatomon, they're able to digivolve into their rookie and even champion forms without ever meeting their partners or even knowing that humans exist…Yet when they reach that stage it is no longer courage or friendship that allow them to transform but fear and loneliness...

"They lose their innocence...Those Digimon who don't have human partners lose their innocence when they digivolve and so they become incapable of staying in rookie or in-training form for long periods of time, or else they completely lose the ability to return to their previous forms. Think about the likes of Ogremon and Tyrannomon. They were rookies once, all Digimon were, but because they didn't have anyone to protect, they easily fell prey to the powers of darkness. I knew what I had to do to defeat Diabomon, but I didn't want her to share their fate…You and Gabumon protected her from having to experience that pain. I never got the chance to thank you..."

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I opened my eyes to see spots of light and shade dancing interchangeably on the forest floor, on tree trunks, even on the clothes I wore. Shielding my eyes, I raised my head but the winged dragon with sea blue eyes had already disappeared from the sky. In her place the bright noon sun glared down at me through a gap in the canopy.

When I looked back down, my dark green shirt had paled to the colour of moss. My first thought was that the fierce light had briefly hurt my eyes.

But then I noticed my arms were also turning greenish and wispy and thin tufts of grass seemed to be sprouting from my stomach. I felt something trickle down my spine and I whipped my head around, thinking that someone had poured a glass of icy cold water down my shirt. I half-expected to see Tai standing behind me, clutching his belly, laughing his head off. But I didn't see Tai, and she wasn't Sora either.

A bright red blush seeped through the white bandages around my wrist, and I thought I could feel Gabumon's razor-sharp teeth sinking into my leg, as if he had chomped down on it three years ago and had not let go ever since. But even with this pain, I couldn't bear to tear myself away from her. Three years had gone by since I last looked into those eyes. Every day the fear of forgetting what they looked like threatened to eat me alive.

She placed her hand over my shoulder as bit by bit I began to fade away from that world. "If you come again, tell me the story of what happened afterwards okay? I was worried about a couple of things when I left and I just can't rest with all those things crowding up my mind."

I nodded, promising that I would tell her everything. I said that I would come back but she shook her head: "It's a tiny bit more complicated than that. I don't even know how it's possible that you're here right now. But I hope that whatever brought you here today will bring you back again and you can tell me all about it. I hope we'll see each other soon."

I could still feel the weight of her hand on my shoulder when I woke up in my own bed the next morning.

Coming home from school the next day I cleaned out my sock drawer and found my old digivice inside a lone brown sock. Next to it was the harmonica I hadn't played in some time. I dug out the digivice and blew off the dust that had settled on top of it. It was much smaller now. It fit snugly in my palm.

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Thanks for reading~ :3


	3. Chapter 3

**Other stuff:** I made some changes to Chapter 2 during the week. I hope it's a little bit better than before!

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**3.**

T.K. called me that same evening. He asked if I could meet him at the park. As I had band rehearsal from six o'clock to eight, I told him I would be a little later and asked him if he'd mind waiting for me to show up. Over the phone T.K. told me that there was something of utmost importance he wanted to discuss with all of the original DigiDestined. It was something he and Kari couldn't come to terms with on their own and Davis, Yolei and Cody hadn't been around long enough to understand the situation so they couldn't ask for their advice either. Eventually they came to agree that it would be better to consult the rest of us who had been there the first time around.

By eight o'clock, we-the Teen-Age Wolves-had finished our eighth run-through of "The Key to Granting Wishes". Christmas was just around the corner so we only had a couple of weeks left to prepare for our first big concert. As we had spent most of the afternoon going through this one song, I couldn't get the melody and the lyrics out of my mind. "Negai kanaeru kagi mou te ni aru..." I sang softly on my way to the park.

Walking under the cold light of the streetlamps, singing our song, for what felt like the hundredth time that day I started thinking about my dream. Specifically, about the way I had disappeared right in front of her eyes. A few seconds before I woke up, she had asked that I return. The thought that she wanted to see me again made my heart flood with a rare kind of happiness while, alternatively, the thought that I might never see her again made my heart sink into a suffocating pit of darkness. What if I can never go back? I wasn't brave enough to consider the possibility.

I tried to recall everything I had done yesterday. Which of all the tiny details could have aligned in just the right way for the portal to that world to open?  
And how did I manage to fall through without being aware of it? An entire day had swept past and I was nowhere close to figuring it out.

I wanted to see her again. That's all I knew for sure. I thought I'd feel a tremendous weight lifted off my shoulders the second I admitted that to myself. Yet, contrary to my expectations, I only felt more afraid.

I didn't get the chance to understand what I was afraid of when someone tapped me on the shoulder, pulling me back down to earth.

Sora stood behind me, smiling.

"Hey Matt, long time no see!"

"Sora…"

"I'm glad I bumped into you Matt," she said cheerfully. "Let's walk there together? It's been a really long time."

Something about her face or the way she spoke made me forget temporarily about the heavy stone tied around my heart.

"Yeah it has," I smiled. "What have you been up to?"

"Just school and volleyball practice, nothing much. I haven't been in touch with you guys lately even with everything that's been going on in the Digital World, I'm sorry I haven't been around to help."

"It's alright. None of us weren't able to help out that much anyway. Well, most of us except Izzy, the rest of us only did what we could to encourage T.K. and the others. But with or without our help they managed to make it through. I wonder if they really are stronger than we were back then?"

On our way to the park she kept tucking her hair behind her ear and I pulled up the strap of my gig bag several times to prevent it from slipping off my shoulder.

"What do you think T.K. and Kari want to discuss with us? I really hope that Biyomon and the others are safe and that nothing bad has happened to them."

"Don't worry, I'm sure they're fine. Actually T.K. didn't tell me much either. I asked him if it was that Digimon Emperor again but he said it's got nothing to do with him."

I scratched out an itch on the side of my nose and tugged at the black strap again. Sora twirled a strand of hair and brushed it behind her ear while her left hand remained inside her pocket.

We didn't talk much the rest of the way. We both had other things on our minds and for a few minutes those things claimed their hold over us. They buzzed loudly in our heads so we couldn't even hear the sound of our footsteps on the cold, dry pavement. A couple of times I glanced to my right just to see if she was still there and hadn't slipped away when I wasn't paying attention. She had both hands inside her pockets, a pink scarf around her neck. Her cheeks looked a bit red and I told myself it was because of the wind.

"What song you were singing just now?"

"Hm? Oh, it's just something we were practicing earlier."

"It sounds nice. I still can't believe you're in a band right now. You were always great on the harmonica but I never thought you could play the guitar too."

"I never thought you'd join the girls' volleyball team. Just last year I went to watch a match you and Tai were in. It was the first time I saw you play and I was surprised at how great you were at soccer. I always wondered why you gave it up and switched to volleyball."

"It's got nothing to do with Tai, if _that's_ what you're thinking," she said, sticking out her tongue playfully. I grinned, playing along so she wouldn't notice that the possibility had in fact occurred to me before. One thing I was never clear about was Sora's relationship with Tai. They had known each other long before we went to the Digital World and it was never clear to me if they were just best friends or something more. While she shared a whole history with Tai, she and I never had much in common and I feel that if it weren't for our time together in the Digital World, we would've never been more than classmates.

"You're coming to the concert?" I asked her and tugged at the annoyingly slippery strap again.

"Yup, it's on the 25th isn't it? Don't worry we're all gonna come."

"You guys could come meet me and the others backstage. There's a door on the side of the building where we'll be performing. Hold on a second, I'll give you the address…"

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"Negai kanaeru kagi mou te ni aru" = "The key that can make wishes come true is in your hand" (translated by contributors at AnimeLyrics)

Thanks for reading this far~ Again, all reviews are welcome =]


	4. Chapter 4

Thanks for coming back to read chapter 4!  
**In this chapter...**T.K. tells the rest of the gang about what's been troubling him. Matt walks Sora home. Sora is curious to know what's on Matt's mind.

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**4.**

Sora and I were the last to arrive at the park. Tai saw us first and waved to us from the wooden castle. Next to him T.K. and Kari each occupied a spot on the swings. Mimi was in America and as usual Joe was busy studying so both of them had told T.K. that they couldn't make it. They had also asked Izzy to send an email to each of them detailing everything we would discuss that night. Izzy's yellow computer was again open on his lap and Izzy himself was sitting on the bottom of the steel slide, busily typing away as we waved back at Tai.

"Hey Matt! Hey Sora! Hurry up, we're all waiting for you!" Tai shouted toward us.

Seeing us, Patamon leapt off T.K.'s hat and flew forward to greet us.

"Hey Matt!" He squeaked.

"Hey Patamon, are you getting used to living in the mess in T.K.'s room yet? He isn't favouring his stuffed animals over you is he?"

"It's okay. T.K.'s mom is really nice. Her cooking is incredibly delicious and Yolei usually drops by to give us snacks from her parents' convenience store. T.K.'s room is messy but I sometimes help with the cleaning too," he announced proudly.

"How's Gabumon doing? Did you guys meet him recently?"

"Yup! We saw him a couple of days ago, he's doing great. When we saw him he was busy helping Elecmon rebuild Primary Village. They told us it should be back to normal in a couple of days so we're going to visit them next time and see what it looks like."

"And how's Rokonmon? How is she?"

His little eyebrows instantly fell when I mentioned that name. He looked completely different to how bright and cheerful he was just a minute ago. He hesitated before answering and I turned away when his big blue eyes looked worriedly into mine.

"Don't worry Matt she's always with Gabumon so I'm sure she's okay…"

"So you met her in Primary Village too? Are many Tsunomon being born there?" I asked him, remembering the village of Tsunomon I had seen in my dream.

"She wasn't there that day," T.K. answered as Patamon settled back on top of his head. "But Gabumon said that she went to help the Gotsumon repair the mountain areas. I think she mentioned that she wanted to meet someone who would also be in that area…And since we haven't fully finished restoring Primary Village, only a few Digitamas have popped up here and there. I don't think any of them have hatched yet but I'll let you know if we see any new Tsunomon the next time we visit."

I nodded gratefully.

Sora and I leaned on each side of against the wooden frame of the swings. I stood between Tai and T.K. while Sora stood next to Kari. The six of us waited quietly in the centre of the park.

"Now that we're all here, what is it you've been waiting to tell us, T.K.?" Taichi finally spoke up, hopping down from the wooden platform of the toy castle. "How are Davis and the other new DigiDestined? Don't tell me you've already gotten yourselves into more trouble…It's barely been a month since we helped defeat the Digimon Emperor!"

"Relax Tai. I wouldn't say we're in trouble. Something weird's definitely going on in the Digital World and we still don't know what we're up against this time. I'm sure we'll find out soon enough...But that's not why we asked you guys to come..."

"Kari's right," T.K. joined in, his eyebrows slightly furrowed. "It's a bit more serious than just not knowing who our enemy is. It started with something that Patamon and I accidentally came across when we were helping clean up the mountain region south of Primary Village. Kari and I both agreed to come to you guys first before reaching any conclusions on our own. We haven't told the others because they've never seen anything like it. We didn't want to make any rash decisions and leave an even bigger mess behind as neither of us was sure what it could be..."

"When you say the others' have seen nothing like it before, you mean it's something we went up against back then?"

"Yes. I think all of you remember something Gennai told us back when we wanted to return to the real world by travelling through the dimensional gate in Myotismon's castle. We were in Gennai's home at the bottom of the lake. He had passed ten key cards into our hands, saying we needed to fit the right cards into the right holes on the stonewall of the gate. Tai, you suggested that we try all of them randomly until we find the right combination. Boy you should've seen how angry the old man was when he heard you! In case you forgot, he tried to strangle you for being so featherbrained. He yelled at you and then he started screaming at the rest of us about how placing the cards in the wrong holes would distort the path between the Digital World and our world and we might end up in a crazy alternate universe with no way of returning to the real world. He came up with a particularly disturbing example that scared Mimi out of her wits (something about switching skins?) and I guess that's all I remember, I wasn't paying much attention..."

"That was a long time ago. Come to think of it, we didn't even know Kari was the eighth DigiDestined at the time."

"But Kari knows that there are worlds other than the real world and the Digital World. She's been to other parts of the Digital World that the rest of us haven't even heard of." He glanced at Kari for a brief second. "And I wanted her to be on the same page when I told you all of this," he added, determinedly.

Kari gently swayed to and fro on the sway next to T.K., looking content and entirely at ease. Gatomon perched atop the metal bar of the swing set, purring ever so slightly, with her eyes closed. Seeing her peaceful expression, I suddenly got the feeling that she must have heard this story many times already.

"So we know this thing you found's got something to do with alternate universes and possibly key cards and gates and the fact that Tai's featherbrained…But I still feel you've barely scratched the surface of the real problem here…What is it that you guys found?" I questioned my younger brother impatiently.

"We found a gate to an alternate universe in the middle of the mountains. It's pretty much the same as the gate we saw in Myotismon's castle except that this one had no physical form. On the surface it just looked like a cave filled with glittering pink and yellow dust. Earlier that day the Gotsumon told us a story about Dra-mons living in the mountain caves, safe-guarding hidden treasures so although we were a bit suspicious, we felt it wasn't right to snoop around, just in case it had something to do with the Gotsumons' story and there really was a fire-breathing dragon-type Digimon sleeping inside, ready to barbeque any trespassers who dared enter his lair…"

Tai interrupted again, "Great story T.K.," he said without trying to hide his sarcasm, "but before you get too excited about it, how did you know that the pink fog was actually a gate?"

"Be patient will you Tai, he's just getting to that part," his sister fended him off angrily.

"We were about to leave when I caught sight of something incredibly odd. For the longest time I thought it must've been an illusion. Why would something like that appear in the middle of mountains? Since then I've been trying to recall the image, trying to see if I'd dreamed up the whole event, but strangely the more I thought about it the more certain I was that it must've been real."

"And? What did you see?" Tai leaned in to ask.

"On the other side I saw a bedroom. In the bedroom there was a bunk bed, a wardrobe, and a large computer on a sturdy desk. The room was incredibly dark and the computer screen gave off an eerie glow. There was a photo frame beside the computer and the image of the two kids inside that picture haunted me for a long time after…I couldn't help thinking that I recognized both of them from somewhere but I just couldn't figure out who they were. The younger kid in the photo looked particularly familiar, and I know I can't prove to all of you, but my instinct told me that he looked awfully a lot like Ken..."

"What?! How's that possible?"

"What's Ken's bedroom doing at the top of the mountain anyway?" Izzy chimed in.

"That's why we wanted to talk to all of you," T.K. finally got to continue, "we defeated the Digimon Emperor and by all appearances Ken's fighting for our side now, but how much do we really know about the guy? How much can we trust him really? I think either he managed to create his own portal to the Digital World or the new enemy's using the cave to travel between the two worlds. If Ken's using the cave as a portal, why wouldn't he tell us about it? But for an enemy Digimon to choose _his_ room specifically, I feel there must be some sort of connection there, some sort of history…

"Yet that's only what I thought of it at the beginning. It wasn't until Kari and I talked yesterday that the possibility that all of this could be interpreted in a very different way came into my mind…"

* * *

For the rest of the evening T.K. described his alternative hypothesis. Some parts of his story were beyond belief. Yet just that morning I had experienced something quite unimaginable myself. I suspended my disbelief and clung onto his every word, listening closely in case there was a clue in his story that could explain how I arrived in _her_ world and what I needed to do to return.

"In any case we're going back to that part of the mountains tomorrow and I'm going to check again if what I saw was real. I'll let you guys know if Kari and I discover anything new."

When he finished my watch showed that it was a little past 9. I walked alongside T.K. to the subway stop around fifteen minutes away from the park. Normally Sora walked home with Tai, but that evening as we said our goodbyes at the entrance to the park she turned away from Tai and started with us towards the subway station. It turned out that just by chance, Sora's aunt, who traveled by the same underground route as I did every morning, was heading to Tokyo later that night and had invited Sora to stay to watch over her baby cousins.

"Hey Sora, aren't you heading home?"

"Hm, my aunt asked me to babysit. I'll see you later Tai."

"Oh, ok then," Tai said and slinked away. I can still hear the pain and disappointment in his voice.

"One more thing Matt," Izzy called to me just as we were about to leave. "Do you mind writing emails to Mimi and Joe telling them what we talked about tonight? I told them that I would fill them in on everything we discussed but I've got a huge problem with a program that I'm coding and I have to fix it by morning."

"Yeah sure I can write to those two. There's something I want to ask Joe myself so I was thinking about emailing him too..."

"Okay great. Thanks Matt. I owe you one."

Relieved that Izzy wasn't going to be grill me about what I wanted to ask, I grinned, quickly nodded goodbye, and set off into the night with Sora and T.K.

Soon, band practice, the chords and the lyrics of "The Key to Granting Wishes" felt strangely far away. Instead a soothing blues tune floated inside my head and then departed as gently and swiftly as it had arrived. Sora brought it up first. None of the others were remotely surprised when I stopped playing the harmonica after we returned from the Digital World.

This was the first time the three of us walked together. Having already said so much in the park T.K. was quiet. Sora on the other hand was smiling, occasionally looking up at the dark blue sky. She didn't talk much all the way. Only letting us hear her voice when we reached a corner or an intersection where she would ask us which direction to turn next. Her cheeks were still red from the cold although she had a woolen scarf wrapped snugly around her neck and her short orange hair completely covered her ears. It took me a while but I finally heard her humming the same tune I played for Gabumon shortly before our first adventure in the Digital World drew to an end. Soon T.K. started to recognize it too. He glanced at me but I just listened along without saying anything. I listened silently as I thought about Gabumon, about Yuko and about the old days when I carried my harmonica in my pockets wherever I went.

We turned the last corner and descended the steps to the underground. Sora bought a one-way pass by pressing a couple of glowing buttons on the ticket machine. I let the scanner read my train pass and followed T.K. through the turnstiles.

Since he had to take a different train, T.K. said a quick goodbye to us by a Muji store. Sora and I stood there for a minute or two, watching him gradually walk away, and before we knew it, we were alone again.

* * *

The platform was empty except for the two of us and an inebriated business man snoring on the seats. By the looks of it he'd been there for several hours. His face was an odd palette of pale white and warm dark red.

"Have you noticed?" Sora asked me, all of a sudden and the thought of waking up the drunken businessman quickly fled my mind.

"Noticed what?" I blushed slightly, surprised she still wanted to talk.

"T.K. and Kari. They're really close. You saw it too, didn't you? The way she was watching him, the way she listened, how serene she looked on the swings just now or anytime she's with him. T.K cares a lot about her too. At least that's how it looked to me…"

"You're right. I saw it too. Not so much tonight but he's always talking about her, ever since he got transferred to her class. They meet up every other day to talk about what's new in the Digital World or what's their next mode of attack, and they always make a good time of it too."

Maybe because it was warmer inside the station she resumed the habit of tucking the loose strand of hair over her ear. Unlike earlier, the strap of my gig bag was fitted securely over my shoulder. I kept both hands in the pockets of my coat to stay warm.

"They were kids together and they're back in that world, reliving what we all went through three years ago. Nothing is the same this time, you and Tai aren't with them. They know that they're the leaders now because they're the only ones who have any experience with battling the powers of evil. I feel I can relate the pressures they face. We all felt it at one time or another. Back then they had their older brothers to count on. For the moment all they have is each other..."

The train thundered into the almost empty station. We stopped talking as we waited for it to storm to a halt. The doors slid open and we strolled on board, settling down close by the portal. Sitting diagonally from us was a young couple. Sora waited until they got off at the second stop down before saying any more.

"Matt…I didn't want to mention it in front of everybody, but…you sure you're alright?"

"Yeah I'm fine."

"So you're not worried about them? T.K. and Kari?"

"They got this far without our help. Even if the next enemy's worse than the Digimon Emperor, Gabumon and the others can digivolve again, so next time we'll have their backs."

"Yeah, we will…" Her voice wavered and she shifted slightly in her seat. "Actually I just thought…well you're relationship with Tai wasn't always as steady. I was worried that you might not approve of them being together because Kari's Tai's little sister…"

Her voice trailed to a whisper that was quickly whisked away by the sound of steel wheels grinding against the tracks. I shook my head firmly though I barely grasped what she meant.

"So what's up Matt? You looked distracted all evening."

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees, wondering how I should tell her, if I should tell her anything at all. My head rang with Yuko's voice as she told me she hoped to see me again. I pictured Sildramon taking flight across the noon sky, and saw again the shining gap in the trees that opened up to the clearing, where Yuko stood waiting for me to emerge from the shadows of the trees.

All these things were swimming inside my head as I sat next to Sora in the almost empty car. I didn't even hear the voice overhead announce our arrival. Sora had to tap my arm to alert me that I was close to home.

"It's something I still can't understand. I don't exactly know what it's about." I told her after we both exited the train through the sliding doors and headed up the stairs to the open air.

"Is it serious?"

"I'm not sure about that either. I guess on a personal level it must be. I mean I haven't been able to stop thinking about it all day."

The air was colder and the street was silent now that we had escaped from the continuous drone of the underground. The bare brown branches extending over the tall fences quivered in the small breeze. Sora raised her cupped hands to her mouth and warmed them with her breath. She pulled her pink scarf over her mouth, as if she didn't plan to talk for a while.

A little while later it did get a bit too cold. I rubbed my hands together and flipped up my collar, pulling the two sides closer to my skin.

"Are you sure you can't tell me more?" She murmured, her voice muffled by the wool.

"Not until I'm able to wrap my own head around this thing. Until then, nothing I say will make any sense."

* * *

Again, thanks for continuing to read "Matt's Reason". I hope you'll look forward to the upcoming chapters!


	5. Chapter 5

Sorry to have kept you waiting. Thanks again for coming back!

* * *

"You don't wear gloves?"

She smiled and shook her head.

"I don't prefer them either. T.K. keeps forgetting that I don't wear them and buys me a pair every Christmas. He probably believes that I lose every pair he gives me because I've received nothing else as a present for the last five years."

"We've changed a lot since returning from that world haven't we?"

"Apparently a lot of habits didn't stick. You stopped wearing your hat and Tai's finally gotten rid of those goggles."

"We never see Mimi with the same haircut twice in a row. You and Joe both have long hair now."

"Yeah I had to grow out because I'm in a rock band. Wonder what Joe's excuse is…?"

"Izzy went through his growth spurt. I guess that was a surprise to everybody."

I laughed. "T.K. lost his helmet when we went fishing with dad and that was when dad gave him his old fisherman's hat to wear instead."

Since she had brought it up earlier I expected Sora to say that I had also stopped playing my harmonica. When she didn't mention it again I wondered if I had reacted too coldly when she talked about it on our way to the park. I was relieved though, thinking that she had let the topic drop and wasn't demanding an explanation.

We stopped by the main stairwell of a four-storey apartment unit.

"This is me," Sora said. "Thanks for walking me here."

Having gotten used to the cold, the flush on her face had long since faded.

I nodded goodbye and sunk both hands deeper inside my pockets. I was just about to turn away when I heard someone calling her name.

"Sora…"

The moment Sora heard me and turned around, I heard something within me click. I felt the heat rising in my face and stared down at the laces on my shoes, not daring to meet her gaze. It must've been the wind, I thought later that night when I got home. The wind was so rough and chilling that when it blew past it like cold sandpaper against my cheeks. I could barely lift up my head because it hurt my eyes so much.

"Maybe we'll see each other again soon," I said, or possibly shouted, I don't really remember, I was suddenly dizzy and I felt as though I was speaking into the haziest fog Japan has ever seen. "Next time…" My voice was shaky and choked and completely unlike my own. "In the meantime I'm going to try to understand more of what's going on so that I can tell you about it next time we meet…" For reasons unknown to me at the time, I had completely lost my cool. "I'll try to wrap my head around whatever happens, so I can tell you more and you'll be able to understand what I've got to say…"

Strangely enough, as soon as those words escaped my mouth, my hands were warm. They were sweating actually, when just a second ago they were cold as ice. When I raised my head and our eyes met, the wind was suddenly calm and gentle like Gabumon's fur pelt. I could feel the faint flush hurrying away from my face. If Sora were to tell me that I had drifted away for a second and in fact said nothing, I would have believed her willingly.

When I looked up Sora was right in front of me. She placed a hand on my shoulder.

"Thanks Matt," she said with a comforting smile.

From the ground floor, I saw the door of her aunt's apartment swing open, and watched a boy and a girl running noisily across the landing before Sora even reached the top of the stairs.

"Good night Matt, I'll see you soon," Sora said in a loud whisper, peeping over the railing of the fourth floor before she closed the door.

"Bye Sora. See you," I whispered back.

* * *

My watch read 9:50 when I returned home. Dad wasn't back yet so I made 'Gyudon' and placed it on the dining table to cool. While watching TV, I waited for him to walk through the door complaining about another hectic day at work. When 12AM rolled by and he still hadn't returned, I placed the bowl of rice and sliced beef on the top shelf in our fridge and went to bed with a glass of water and a stack of sheet music under my arm.

In my bedroom, I sat down at my desk and waited for the computer to load. Walking home from Sora's place I had finally decided on what I wanted to say to Joe and Mimi, and after I quickly confirmed with Izzy that their email addresses hadn't changed, I started typing right away.

_Hi Mimi_ _& Joe,_

I started to write,

_How are you guys? Izzy told me you wanted to know about what we talked about with T.K. and Kari tonight. Unfortunately something came up and he says he's sorry he won't be able to pass along the information. He asked me to write to the both of you in his place and I'll try my best to fill you guys in on what happened. _

I wrote them about how T.K. found the dimensional gate, about he thought he saw the Digimon Emperor, I mean, Ken's room on the other side of that gate. I recounted what T.K. told us about his alternative theory, and at the very end of the letter, I added:

_I also wanted to ask you if you remembered something from three years ago. I'm sorry to bring up that specific event again, but I remember distinctly that you guys were the first ones Yuko talked to when she came back from her hike up Infinity Mountain. _

_What did she say to you guys? _

Would they remember what they'd heard? I wondered what might be waiting for me when I checked my inbox in the morning, if I might come any closer to understanding what was going on.

_Hope you guys are doing well._

_Cheers,_

_Matt_


End file.
